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Andrew Salter, Behavior Therapist, 82, Dies

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Andrew Salter, a psychologist who helped develop the theoretical underpinnings and clinical applications of behavior therapy decades before the field became popular, died on Monday at his home in Manhattan. He was 82.

The cause was cancer, said Dr. William J. Salter, his son.

Mr. Salter, recognized as a founder of behavior therapy, was one of the first to take the findings from experimental psychology on things like conditioned reflexes and apply those principles to solving people's problems. He rejected psychoanalysis, with its years of probing into the roots of neuroses, arguing in the 1940's that a psychologist could help people who were overly anxious, shy or depressed much more quickly by teaching them to change their behavior.

Dr. Gerald C. Davison, a psychology professor at the University of Southern California, wrote that Mr. Salter had been so far ahead of the behaviorist wave of the 1960's that many younger behavioral psychologists were unaware of his work.

He said Mr. Salter's ideas ''have become so widely accepted that he is often not formally cited when contemporary writers in behavior therapy refer to assertion training, expressiveness training, 'getting in touch with one's feelings,' '' all early ideas of Mr. Salter's that became popular later.

Dr. Davison made those comments in recommending that the Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy present Mr. Salter with its lifetime achievement award, which it will do posthumously, on Nov. 23. He is the second psychologist to win the award.

Mr. Salter took an unconventional path to an unusual career. Born in Waterbury, Conn., he graduated from New York University in 1937 with a bachelor's degree in psychology and a burning interest in research, but no patience for postgraduate work. ''I had no desire to spend the rest of my life studying the reactions of rats lost in labyrinths,'' he once said.

He plunged into research and clinical practice, which was possible with a bachelor's degree at the time, and was allowed to continue to practice when the state later set more rigid licensing standards. He continued his practice until a few months ago.

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Hypnosis had captured Mr. Salter's interest in college, and he looked for ways to use it in clinical practice. He developed techniques for self-hypnosis but initially found it hard to publish his work because he did not have the necessary academic credentials. A psychologist at Yale University, Dr. Clark Leonard Hull, helped him publish an article in The Journal of General Psychology in 1941. He came to national attention that year when Life magazine publicized his ideas about short-term psychotherapy. In 1944, he published his first book, ''What Is Hypnosis?''

In 1949, Mr. Salter published ''Conditioned Reflex Therapy,'' which took many of the principles developed by those who did watch rats run mazes and used them to develop short-term therapies for neuroses. In an interview, Dr. Davison called it ''a landmark book in experimentally based psychotherapy.''

The therapy Mr. Salter employed encouraged patients to express their emotions and used visual imagery to reduce anxiety. It also moved people past their fears by gradually getting them accustomed to being around the things they feared.

In 1952, Mr. Salter published ''The Case Against Psychoanalysis,'' in which he looked at the scientific basis for that field and pronounced it weak. The book generated much controversy, said Dr. Alan E. Kazdin, a psychology professor at Yale, particularly because Mr. Salter used such vivid language to wield his literary club. ''One of his phrases was that trying to pin down psychoanalysis was like nailing lemon meringue to a wall,'' Dr. Kazdin said. ''But what made him special was that he didn't just criticize. He came up with an alternative, applied it and helped develop a whole movement.''

Besides his son William, of Harvard, Mass., Mr. Salter is survived by his wife, Rhoda; another son, Robert, of Tarrytown, N.Y.; a sister, Bertha Seigel of Montgomery County, Md., and three grandchildren.

A version of this obituary; biography appears in print on October 9, 1996, on Page D00019 of the National edition with the headline: Andrew Salter, Behavior Therapist, 82, Dies. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe